Fox Footy’s team of stars prepares for the bounce

Like a football team full of star players, Premier Media Group chief executive
Patrick Delany
hopes the star-studded, and no doubt expensive, list of talent he has assembled for the pay television producer’s new AFL channel will quickly mesh and be a hit with viewers.

Eddie McGuire
is one of many AFL identities who have signed to appear on the new Fox Footy channel, which begins broadcasting on Foxtel and
Austar United Communications
on February 17 with the preseason NAB Cup, which is exclusive to the channel.

Under the terms of the five-year, $658 million cash and contra deal signed with the AFL last year, Foxtel and Austar will show all nine AFL matches live every weekend. (Premier, which is owned by
News Ltd
and
Consolidated Media Holdings
, will sell the new channel to Foxtel and Austar.)

Almost all matches will be on the new Fox Footy channel, although some will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 when schedules conflict.

The nine weekly matches are vital for ratings. Mr Delany would not reveal Premier’s forecasts but expects ratings to improve with a dedicated channel. He said the magazine-style programs to be broadcast on Fox Footy throughout the week would also be important.

“We want the on-air talent to mesh, because if they don’t then you run into problems," he said.

“We really want those programs to work and we’ve got some good people. You’ll see that a lot of our shows have migrated across [from the Fox Sports channels] and you’ll be seeing a lot more of some of the talent from those."

Mr McGuire, a Nine Network personality, radio announcer and president of AFL club Collingwood, was an important recruit for the channel, Mr Delany said. “Eddie gives us legitimacy in the southern states and is someone people know elsewhere as well."

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As well as commenting on some matches, Mr McGuire would host a program on Sunday nights featuring one-on-one interviews with football identities.

Some of Fox Footy’s recruits are from Ten Network, including commentator Anthony Hudson. Last year, Ten chose not to participate in the bidding war after sharing the rights with Seven Network and Nine for 10 years.

The popular AFL 360 program, hosted on Fox Sports on Wednesday evenings last year by Gerard Whateley and Mark Robinson, would be broadcast from Monday to Thursday nights on Fox Footy. Other programs shown last year such as Open Mike, After the Bounce, AFL Insider, On the Couch and League Teams (formerly AFL Teams) would also move to Fox Footy.

Mr Delany won’t reveal how much money Premier, Foxtel and Austar have invested in Fox Footy but analysts said it would be a considerable sum considering the costs associated with producing and telecasting six live matches in high definition every week (Seven will provide the feed for the other three), a studio in Melbourne and wages for on-air talent.

Mr Delany said high-definition telecasts and having no advertisements during live action (ads will run at quarter-time and half-time breaks) meant viewer numbers would hold up when matches were shown on Seven and Fox Footy at the same time.

“All our research shows our viewers really like having no ads siren to siren," he said.

“We will also be quite innovative with our broadcasting. Then there is the fact that AFL fans will have access to more live football than ever before."

Mr Delany would not reveal how many new subscribers Foxtel and Austar need to sign before they made money on the new AFL deal, but said: “It’s a bit less than some of the numbers I’ve read publicly."

Last year, Merrill Lynch estimated that to break even on their increased investment, Foxtel and Austar would need to sign about 75,000 new subscribers and convince 35,000 existing subscribers to upgrade to more expensive HD-TV packages.

Some media executives have been surprised by Premier’s decision to revive the Fox Footy name, which was used on a channel that was taken off air in 2006 after making heavy losses after failing to attract high subscriber numbers. The old Fox Footy channel was sold separately to the main Foxtel and Austar subscriptions.

Mr Delany said the latest incarnation of Fox Footy would be more successful because it was part of Foxtel and Austar’s sports package.

Premier will bid to retain its NRL television rights, later this year, although negotiations are delayed until the league’s independent commission is established. Rugby league is the most popular sport on pay TV in Australia, but Mr Delany said a dedicated NRL channel on Foxtel and Austar was not on the agenda.

“I think AFL will be unique in that regard," he said. “AFL really is a 24 hours a day, seven days a week passion for its fans."